By RUSS O’SHEA
For the past few years, trans people have been put in the spotlight in quite a grotesque way. November’s election saw the trans community scapegoated for virtually any societal problem in the service of the political game. The Republican Party viciously attacked the trans community and President-elect Donald Trump has repeatedly promised to destroy trans lives. Not mincing words, Trump laid out a plan to, on day one, ban trans people from the military, schools, bathrooms, and sports, as well as to ban life-saving gender-affirming care. This follows previous iterations of the plan, which also included targeting teachers, parents, and medical providers of trans people.
The implications of these attacks are very grave, and it logically follows that phone calls to suicide hotlines by trans people increased 700% following the election. The expectation is that Trump’s second term will echo the anti-trans offensive of his first, but will show yet unseen brutality, helped by a more developed network of anti-trans forces than existed back then.
At the same time that the Republicans are making dire threats, Democrats proved themselves completely unwilling to defend trans rights during the election, with some candidates following the GOP playbook and adopting anti-trans messaging as part of their campaigns. Some around the party claimed that its failure at the polls points to a need to “move right” on trans issues and others indicated that trans people and other minorities like Arabs and Latinos are to blame for the loss. The perspective of leaving trans people behind was seen in action when the party refused to fight provisions in the military budget (NDAA) that would prohibit its health insurance from providing gender-affirming care to children of service members. The passage of this budget is no doubt welcome news for Trump and his ambition to kick trans service members out of the military, continuing Biden’s greenlighting of the nation’s largest employer to discriminate against trans people.
The concession on this budget is the latest chapter in the Democrats’ legacy of doing nothing to meaningfully challenge the thousands of attacks on trans rights over the last few years. Yet trans people are still told time and time again that the Democrats are their only option: “Being crushed slowly under a tighter and tighter thumb is better than being crushed immediately” is the message.
The contradiction between the Democrats’ “progressive” message and their apparent disdain for trans people is further complicated by the trans legislators who run under their banner. One such politician, Sarah McBride, earned the title of being the first openly trans state senator elected to office, representing Delaware. But the tension was made clear as McBride, like her Democratic Party colleagues, conceded to the right-wing assertions that trans people should not have the right to use the bathroom aligning with their gender identity, which effectively means trans people don’t have the right to use the bathroom at all. This conciliation will simply embolden the right wing to continue attacks on bathroom access, like the bans in Ohio and Florida, and pursue the use of bounties on trans people, as is seen in Odessa, Texas.
Without a political party that is interested in defending trans lives, what options are there to stop the offensive that the incoming administration promises to accelerate? The only choice is what trans people have always had to do: take the fight for life into their own hands. What is necessary now is the construction of a mass movement that demonstrates these attacks are against the will of the vast majority of people. This movement could be significantly empowered if it were to join with and find allies in other movements—like those for immigrant, Black, and women’s rights, as well as the climate and Palestine movements. In 2020, the solidarity between the movements for Black lives and trans lives was powerful enough that it put pressure on a conservative Supreme Court to mandate that it is illegal to fire workers on the basis of gender identity or sexuality.
A robust opposition to the offensive would be achievable with the help of a democratically organized, rank-and-file-led labor movement energized to fight for trans rights on the shop floor, in contracts, and in the streets. Already, a number of union locals are recognizing the importance of defending trans people. Last year, UAW Local 2325 won gender-affirming care as part of its contract. Making gains like this doesn’t just immediately improve the living conditions of trans people; it creates space to have conversations about how legal assaults are attacks on all workers. As the culture war continues to rage, educating workers on issues like trans rights will become more and more important to establish solidarity and defend the entire working class from the divide-and-conquer tactics that make the destruction of its wages and living conditions easy. In fact, trans people are under attack because it allows the powers that be to do precisely this.
In the grand scheme of things, combating these attacks will require much more than voting in the “correct” candidate or avoiding the “wrong” one. It will require a social transformation away from the current system, which is set up to help the politicians serve their corporate masters. The foundation of such a transformation can be laid by building a movement that is ready to fight for trans rights and all rights and has the perspective of broadening to every social layer it can reach.